Tuesday, May 23, 2006

New News re: Nous.

Big scholastic news here at Chez Mystery!

Muffin Man is starting Pre-K! He visited for a few hours yesterday and today. Will do the same tomorrow and Thursday and then Friday they're going to do a big to-do about moving his name tag and folder to the new classroom. He's uncertain as to whether this is a good thing. On the one hand, the Pre-K kids get to do some stuff that the mere pre-schoolers don't. On the other hand, Deep-Voiced Toddler is not yet ready to make this move and will be left behind in the old class. Muffin Man doesn't like leaving DVT behind and doesn't really want to change teachers. But we're making promises about play-dates and his teacher actually spends part of each morning in the new class so things are proceeding.

The director of Posh New Place says they normally don't move kids into Pre-K this early, but that Muffin Man is "quite advanced". Thus ends the bragging portion of this post.


Yesterday also marked the start of my Summer classes. I'm taking 4 classes this Summer, 2 in the first half (May/June) and 2 in the second half (July/August). Each session is four weeks long and the classes meet more often for longer periods. This first half I'm taking Developmental Psychology and Linguisitics. So far in DP, we've covered research methods and ethics (briefly); Cognition and Learning; and Fetal Development. (Extra special thanks to Andrea from Beanie Baby for her in-depth analysis of how genetic counselling can be seen as eugenic in nature. I was able to take the "con" position in a pros and cons debate in class today. Also thanks to so many of you who have described CVS on your blogs so that I could helpfully point out that it carries a risk of miscarriage.)

In Linguistics, we're reading about Morphology. I am now going to get my (actually, Mr. Spock's) copy of the Oxford American Dictionary so that I can make an approximation of how many words I know. (Open a dictionary. Count the number of words you know on several pages chosen at random. Divide the full number of words you counted by the number of pages you found them on. Multiply that number by the number of pages in the dictionary.) I'll report the number later.


UPDATED: And the number is.....a little under 70,000. However, my teacher pointed out that there is no real way to tell how many words you know. When you factor in the family of numbers (1 through infinity), you actually know an infinite number of words.

7 comments:

halloweenlover said...

Wow! Good for Muffin Man! I definitely thought he was advanced from our coffee date. He speech is awesome!

I can't believe you are back in class already. You have my total adoration!

susan said...

Wow, no rest for she who just got spring grades posted!

Enjoy the linguistics and everything else!

jenn said...

I hope your summer sessions go well m'dear!

I am just starting my third week of six for our summer do. They run six weeks, twice a week, three hours each. Which, if my tired brain is right - works out to the rather standard 12 weeks in total. Ish.

There is something really cool about the quicker versions - but important to remember when it is close enough to sprint. Sprinting too soon sucks.

With that said, I really need to get myself to class....

oops!

Anonymous said...

You're very welcome!

And congrats for Muffin Man. What a smartypants.

Phantom Scribbler said...

Mazel tov to Muffin Man! Such a big boy! And we all knew that he is very advanced!

Anonymous said...

Yay Muffin Man! So advanced, he is. Such a smartie. And cute, too!

Enjoy your classes, and report back on the Morphology!

Yankee, Transferred said...

I bow to you and Mr. Muffin Man, Junior Genius.